


The Level 6 Company Man

by kultiras



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Killjoys (TV), M/M, Non-Consensual Body Modification, basically the Level 6 program, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 16:07:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9131674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kultiras/pseuds/kultiras
Summary: Killjoys AU: Phil Coulson died years earlier, Clint was certain of that. But how did a familiar face arrive and save Clint and Natasha when a warrant turned dangerous?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sian1359](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sian1359/gifts).



> Happy Holidays sian1359! I'm so sorry you had to wait an extra long time for this story to be revealed, but 2016 decided to throw one last technological disaster at me on its way out. 
> 
> I really wanted to write a Killjoys AU for you, and I had fun trying to decide how Clint, Phil, Natasha and the other Avengers and SHIELD agents would fit into the Killjoys universe. 
> 
> Many thanks to M for looking this over for me. And many thanks to the CCHE Mods for giving me the time to fix this up.

“You have a way out yet, Nat?” Clint asked her. Only a few minutes had passed since they had been unceremoniously tossed into the closed room together.

Natasha continued her inspection of their surroundings as she rattled off a status update. “There are no windows, no useful bits or bobs lying around, they took most of my weapons, and the nearest vent is out of reach unless you could launch me up to it. Which, I’ll remind you, is not an option since they nearly yanked your arm out while dragging you in here.” She paused and glanced over at Clint, eyeing the way he was leaning carefully against the nearest wall. “Next time, try not to annoy them so early unless we know exactly what their plans are for us.”

Giving up for the time being, she settled down near Clint, both of them facing towards the door but nearly out of view from the entryway. “This was supposed to be an easy job. Fury told us it would be an easy job.”

“Fury thinks anything below a kill warrant should be a piece of cake for you, Nat. This was a level three gig. It was bound to be a bit of a challenge.”

“Yeah, but it’s usually not like this. Were you able to send a warning out before they took our comms?”

“Yeah, and Jessica responded too. According to Jessica, Fury has someone near here who he’s sending to help us.”

“Another killjoy? I don’t remember another warrant coming up in this part of the Quad.”

“Don’t think it’s a killjoy. You know Fury’s more than just a broker, this is probably someone from one of his other day jobs.”

“That’s all well and good, but do we have any way of knowing when this mystery helper will get here?”

“Nope. Jessica couldn’t get that information to me before they grabbed our comms,” Clint replied, shifting uncomfortably as the pain in his arm flared up momentarily.

“So we could be dragged out of here to be killed before they get here?”

“Pretty much.”

Natasha huffed in frustration and hopped back up, once again determined to find a way out of the locked room. She had nearly completed yet another circuit of the room when they heard a muffled crack outside the room followed by a series of thuds. They looked at one another and Clint quickly scrambled to his feet at Natasha scavenged for something they could arm themselves with. At a loss for time, she reached down for a couple of the tiny blades that she had concealed in the base of her boot. Tossing one to Clint, they did their best to conceal themselves in the room.

A moment later, their door opened quickly yet quietly. From where he was concealed, Clint couldn’t see the speaker, but he heard him quietly call out. “Natasha?” Clint felt the blood drain from his face as he recognized the voice as the speaker continued, “Natasha Romanov? Fury sent me.”

Natasha stepped out to reply but was quickly cut off by Clint as he lurched away from his perch to confront their would-be rescuer.

“You’re dead!” Clint hissed at him, pointing the borrowed blade at the newcomer. “I saw Phil Coulson die. So who the hell are you?”

“Clint?” Phil stared at him in shock. “Fury told me Natasha had a partner, but he never told me that it was you. I never meant to leave you behind, I always wanted to keep my promise to you, to get us both of of Westerley together. I swear, I can explain everything, Clint. But we can’t stay here. They’re going to send reinforcements here any minute. We have to go.” When Clint just stared back at him in a mixture of anger and shock, Phil turned and looked imploringly at Natasha.

“Clint,” Natasha said. “I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but he’s right. We have to go.”

“Fine,” Clint replied. “If you're really Phil, then how are you standing here? And where the hell have you been, Phil?”

“Hell, for a while,” Phil said. He quickly handed over most of their missing gear, plus some weapons from the men lying in the hallway. “I grabbed whatever looked out of place upstairs,” he said, correctly interpreting Natasha’s surprised look before he turned back to Clint. “We really don’t have the time, Clint, but what I can say is that I didn’t die back then. I nearly died. They just didn’t let me.”

“They…who?” 

“Talk later, move now,” Natasha interrupted, shoving them out the door, and quickly following behind them.

*~*~*~*~*

The trek back to Natasha's ship took longer than any of them would have liked, but staying under the radar was far too important to risk any of the shortcuts they knew about. The compound where they had been captured had been isolated enough that there were no passers by to notice their escape. By the time they were halfway back to their hidden ship, walking through a small abandoned canyon in the wastelands, it had been almost half an hour since they'd last seen another person.

"Do you have a ship you need to go back for?" Clint asked Phil, finally breaking the awkward silence that had settled over the trio. 

"No, I caught a ride from Fury's with someone else headed in this direction. Needed to retrieve something for him. He said I might as well get a ride back with you."

"Oh he did, did he?" Natasha replied suspiciously, "We'll see about that. I'm going to have to call him once we reach Jessica, since I don't even know who you are."

"Phil Coulson. Former best friend, former employee of The Company, former boyfriend, currently believed to have died almost three years ago on Westerley," Clint replied in an emotionless voice. 

"Clint…"

"No, Phil. I need some answers now. I deserve that at least, after all this time," Clint said, cutting him off. A glance ahead at Natasha showed that she was listening intently even if she wasn't speaking up. "What happened to you, Phil?"

"Like I said earlier, I didn't die that day. I honestly wish that I had though, because that would have been a blessing compared to what did happen." He focused on walking in line behind Natasha, steeling himself for the explanation he had to give. "This may not make a lot of sense at first," Phil cautioned. "I've never actually had to explain this before.

"See when you sign up with The Company, sometimes you don't get a choice regarding the paperwork that you sign. Like the papers that allow The Company to collect your body and use it however they see fit. Even if that means assorted experimentation on a nearly-dead man."

Clint's gasp of horror was almost drowned out by Natasha's muttered cursing, but Phil didn't miss it. He reached back behind him for Clint's hand and squeezed it quickly before he let go and continued on with his story. 

"I can't tell you what they did to me. Or for how long they did it. Because once those experiments ceased, they injected me with some glowing green alien goo," Phil recalled with a shudder. "It was gross, painful, uncomfortable, and at the end of the process, I think I had lost almost all of my autonomy."

As the path they were walking on widened up, Clint stepped forward until he was alongside Phil. This time Clint was the one to reach out offer comfort, first squeezing Phil's shoulder before sliding down his arm to loosely hold his hand. Phil gladly latched onto Clint's offer, and held on to Clint with a small smile. 

"I don't remember everything that they had me do for them, but Fury had at least heard of the second set of procedures. He recognized it immediately when I gave him the program's name: Level 6."

"Level 6 is just an urban legend," Natasha replied matter of factly. 

"Not to mention it involves killjoys who've vanished from the Quad," Clint added. 

"And yet, I'm different in ways that otherwise just can't be explained through normal means. Ways that shouldn't be possible."

"You're serious about this?" Natasha asked. At Phil's nod she added, "Then what's changed?"

"In short, I heal better than I should, I have more energy, more stamina, and my vitals make me look like I'm twenty years younger." Phil explained. 

Clint stared at him skeptically and asked, "I'm not saying that I don't believe you, but can you actually prove any of this?"

"I'd offer to cut myself in order to prove it to you, but that is probably not an ideal test anymore, because I'm not healing like I was a year ago," Phil said thoughtfully. "Actually Fury is the best bet for proof. He's run his own tests over the last year since his people found me."

"You've been with Fury for a year and we're only just seeing you, why?" Natasha demanded. A glance back at Clint showed that he was frustrated by the incomplete explanations. "Actually, hold that thought. Clint can we get in touch with Jessica?"

"No, but she's probably aware of us by now. She'll find a way to let us know if she's safe. When has my girl ever let us down?"

"Your girl?" Natasha cried out incredulously, "She's _my_ ship!"

Phil looked at them in surprise. "Jessica's your ship? I thought you'd left a third teammate behind to watch the ship."

"Nope, she's our ship. Well, our ship's AI to be more specific," Clint clarified. "She's good people though."

"You always did like making friends," Phil said with a smile.

"You have no idea," Natasha replied dryly. "Everyone loves Clint. Everyone. And he's Jessica's favorite, too."

"She doesn't have favorites, Nat."

"Keep telling yourself that, Clint."

"It's nice to know that some things are still the same."

Clint's face fell at the reminder of what Phil had gone through. "We're not far from the ship if you want to get back to answering Natasha's questions." He tried to give Phil an encouraging smile, but judging by the distressed look he received in return, he wasn't particularly successful with that. "C'mon, Phil. You've told us most of it, right?"

"Yeah," Phil said. He looked at Natasha and seeing her blandly interested expression, he sighed and picked up his story once more. "I mentioned that I'm not healing like I was a year ago. Back then, I was a proper Level 6 working, not as a killjoy, but as a part of The Company. I can't tell you how long I had worked there, but around nine months ago, I started…leaking for lack of a better description."

"What?" Clint asked, "How… _what_?"

"The green alien goo that they injected me with, the stuff that contributed to the changes I went through? It started coming out of me from every pore, every orifice. For some reason, my body started rejecting it, but I still don't really know why." Phil kept walking, seeing the shape of their ship appearing in the distance. 

"I needed to get out of there before the Black Root took notice, but with my body basically malfunctioning on me, I didn't stand a chance."

"Black Root?" Clint asked, "What's that?"

"They're the Company police of sorts," Phil explained. "More like enforcers, really."

"So how did you get out then?" asked Natasha. 

"That was entirely thanks to Fury." Phil smiled slightly at their looks of surprised acceptance. "We knew each other when we were kids, long before I met you, Clint. I don't know what information he came across in the past year, but he became convinced that I was still alive. He had an operative on the inside, somewhere in The Company, and Maria not only dragged me out of there, she went back in and covered it all up. As far as The Company knows, there was never a Level 6 asset named Phil Coulson."

Clint whistled at that, "She got you out of there without any extra backup?"

"Impressive," Natasha agreed, "There aren't many people with the training to pull that sort of operation off single handedly."

Phil nodded in agreement. "Of course, getting me out only turned out to be the first step in my recovery." 

"What else was there to it?"

"You asked me earlier why you were only hearing from me now. The truth is, I've only felt like myself for the last month or two," Phil explained. "Fury had me under surveillance for months until we both felt like I was safe to be around. Between the initial experimentation, the breakdown of the Level 6 treatment, and the resurgence of my memories, feelings, and independent thoughts, I was a mess for months." 

"Phil…" Clint stopped him and wrapped him up in a tight hug. "I'm so sorry, Phil. This never should have happened to you."

Phil hugged him back just as tightly. "It shouldn't have, but I survived it." He pulled back and added, "I'm not the same as when I last saw you, and I've been through hell, but things are finally starting to look up." He smiled at Clint and stepped back, letting his hand remain holding Clint's. 

Clint smiled back and using his grip on Phil's hands he tugged him along as he followed Natasha back to Jessica.

Finally reaching her ship, Natasha keyed in the entry code, and entered the ship as soon as the doors were open. Clint and Phil followed her in, and dropped their extra weapons on one of the tables in the cargo bay.

"Jessica, everything good while we were out?" Natasha asked.

"There were no changes while you were gone," Jessica replied.

"Glad to hear it," Clint said. "As you may have guessed, we're going to need to set up new comms, Jessica."

"I'm happy to hear that that is all that will be needed. I worried when your comms went offline." As Jessica spoke to Clint, Natasha gestured at the ship around her and whispered to Phil, "See? He's her favorite."

Before Phil could reply, Jessica cut in and said, "I heard that Natasha. I'm a ship. I don't have favorites."

"See?" Clint grinned back at them, "Told you she doesn't have favorites." Natasha rolled her eyes and Phil let out a small chuckle. "Jessica, this is Phil Coulson," Clint continued, "He's an old friend of mine, and he's the one who rescued us."

"It's a pleasure to meet you Phil. Thank you for rescuing them. Clint, my records indicate that Phil Coulson is supposed to be dead. I take it that's an error?" Jessica asked. The others all burst into laughter at that, leaving Phil to explain. 

"I was mostly dead, and didn't stay that way for long, Jessica. And it's nice to meet you too. I'll let Clint explain the whole story to you whenever he wants to."

"I look forward to hearing the explanation," Jessica said.

"So what now?" Clint asked.

"I need to get the information I retrieved back to Fury," Phil said. "Are you going back that way too?"

"Well we still have a warrant to take care of," Natasha reminded him. "If we don't capture Hammer, then we don't get paid," she added, looking pointedly at Clint.

"A ship departed the Hammer Compound shortly after your capture," Jessica interrupted smoothly. "Based on the increased security presence surrounding the launch, it is highly probable that your target was on board the ship."

"Of course he skipped off planet." Natasha started pacing angrily in the confines of the cargo hold, too frustrated to stay still any longer. "And now we have no idea of where he is. Jessica, can you access the servers, maybe find out information like a flight plan? Anything that could help us."

"If I hack into their system, their failsafes will reveal our location in a very short amount of time."

"Are you able to track them at all?" Phil asked.

"If Jessica had gotten a lock on them before they took off, then she could at least give us an idea on the direction they were heading in without risking our location," Clint replied. "But she can't track them now."

"They're still in the J Star Cluster."

"What?" the other three replied simultaneously. 

"I did get a lock on the ship as it exited, Clint." Jessica explained. "Based on velocity, trajectory, and number of potential hiding places, the J Star Cluster, particularly the Crow Nebula, seems to be a likely destination. They're leaving The Quad, not the star system itself."

"Saying Hammer's still in the J doesn't narrow it down much, it could be anything," Natasha said thoughtfully. "We're in the Quad and it's still a part of the J after all."

"Could be Archive though, if they really are heading for the Crow Nebula," Clint added.

"Too risky to guess though. If we're wrong, then he knows we're still coming for him," Natasha said.

"So back to Fury?" Phil asked. "From what I can tell, he has some of the best intel in the Quad, and he can probably point you in the right direction."

"Sounds like a solid plan," Natasha said, moving towards the pilot's chair. 

"Yeah, and you can fill me in on what else Fury has had you doing the last couple months while we're on our way," Clint agreed, nudging Phil with his shoulder.

"Or you can fill me in on the last couple of years," Phil suggested casually, "I don't even know how you and Natasha got together."

"We're partners, we're not together," Natasha yelled from the front cabin. "Ask Jessica, she'll tell you!"

"It's true, Phil. They've never been romantically involved."

"I see. Well that's definitely good to know," he replied, smiling over at Clint.

"It is important information," Clint said playfully. Turning serious for a moment he added, "There hasn't been anyone for me since you, Phil." Clint leaned in and gave Phil a quick peck on the lips, then pulled back smiling.

"Then I'm very glad nothing has changed," Phil said, pulling him in for a brief, but deeper, kiss. 

Any further comments and kisses were cut off as Natasha called back to them, "You'd better strap in, we're taking off and we're in a hurry, boys."

The two laughed as they scrambled to grab seats, barely buckled in before Natasha was launching them into their next adventure.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year! I hope 2017 is an excellent year for you.


End file.
